Social Studies Lesson Plan
Social Studies Lesson Plan
Social Studies Lesson Plan
Lesson Plan
Overview/Purpose: Students will be able to gain more understanding of the word culture: and
Students will be able to acknowledge that each family has their own culture no matter where they
are from.
Rationale of the lesson: The lesson was a stand alone lesson. However, I am taking the
feedbacks from my mentor teacher about expanding the topic into a weeklong lesson so I will be
teaching this next semester as well. I will be in the same classroom for my student teaching next
semester. So, next semester, it will be the part of the larger unit.
Standards Integration
Essential Questions
How are cultures similar and different from each other? What is the language that you speak in
your home? How does your family celebrate holidays? How does your family celebrate
birthday? What food does your family eat? What kinds of clothes does your family wear? Where
are you from? What does your family do for fun? What does the culture look like? Why is the
1st activity: Brain break; Freeze dance to get them pumped and active for the lesson. 5 minutes
2nd activity: explore few books from different countries and cultures
5th activity: get in a pair and share what they wrote about their own family culture with each
other. 8 minutes
6th activity: present what they learned about each others family culture. 25 minutes
7th activity: play cultural games that I have and the students have. 10 -15 minutes
Materials
Content Objective(s)
I want my students to acknowledge that each one of them have their own culture no matter where
they are from and that each of them are respected and valued in my classroom. I expect them to
at least have few points about their family culture like what they eat, wear, and how they
celebrate holidays.
For reading, we will be reading books, for writing, they will be writing an essay about their own
family culture, for speaking and listening, they will be sharing their own writing with each other.
Key Vocabulary
Culture
Flag
Food
Clothes
Environment: how do the places around them look like?
Landscape: how are the buildings, what are they made of?
Language
Holidays
Celebrations: what do the families do for holidays, what they eat and wear or play?
Climate: is it cold or hot in there?
Lesson Sequence/Procedures
1st activity: Brain break; Freeze dance to get them pumped and active for the lesson. 5
minutes
2nd activity: explore few books from different countries and cultures
Prior Knowledge/Review/Anticipatory Set: Before I taught this lesson, I had students go home
and talk to their parents about their family culture. I had explained what culture means and what
my own culture/country and family culture is to me and encouraged them to have conversation
with their family about their own culture. Few things I gave as example to help them think are;
clothes, foods, places they go and how they celebrate birthdays and holidays. As anticipatory set,
I read them the books in the beginning of the lesson after the brain break.
Demonstration/Modeling: I had written my own cultural writing about my family culture which I
read to them after reading the books/before they began their own family culture essay. I also
Guided Practice/Application/Interaction:
Review/Assessment/Closure/Wrap-up: at the end before the fun games, students read each other
essays and talked about something they learned about each other. They presented their peers
culture. After the games, we talked about what they thought about the lessons in general. Things
that I did well and things that I could improve. Things that they liked and things that they would
want to do more.
Review/Assessment
I will have them write an essay about their family culture. This will tell me whether they
understood the word culture or not by seeing things that they talk about. For example, if they
talked about celebrating certain holidays, I would expect them to somehow explain how they
celebrate them.
Accommodations
There is a student I am little concerned about for this lesson. A student does not understand
English to be able to participate and the teacher aid always pulls him out of the lessons.
However, I disagree with that because I believe that if he is around his classmates more and if he
is learning what others are learning with accommodations instead of being pulled away then
slowly but eventually he will learn. Therefore, I will request the teacher aid to not pull him away
from this lesson and I will make it more hands-on than writing so that he will not have as much
difficult time as if he would with writing. Few other things I will do are; will peer him up with a
Spanish speaker who will be able to translate to him whenever needed, I will be visiting him
more often to see if he is understanding the instructions, I will be allowing him to write in
Spanish if needed, and I will also encourage him to draw his ideas if writing will not help (just
aloud. I will also allow them to read off their paper instead of just summarizing off of their head.
They can also ask their partner or group members for help with the words or the explanations if
they need it. I will not pick on them without they being aware of it. If they will not get the
answer right away, I will tell them that I can come back to them if they will remember it later.
For special needs; I will allow him to share his thoughts and data in Spanish and someone who is
fluent in Spanish can translate to the class and me. I will also encourage him to share them in